I am teh walrus!

I posted this on Fiction too, but then I noticed a critique board and decided this would be a better place to do it... *ahem*...



Chapter One


--1--
The wind blew through Ker-T’kal, the smell of night pungent on its feathery edge. (“Ker-T’Kal—Home of the Tunnel!” proclaimed a sign on the way into the town) It whispered through the sleeping town, its secret words heard by no one but a few stray dogs and the homeless man who had claimed one particularly shady street corner as his own. The locals had taken to calling this man Leather Hide, his skin being scarred from what people assumed to be stabbings and bar brawls gone sour. He was actually a hunter, but one in a particularly bad patch of luck.

Sadly, the people in this Ker had not offered the scarred but strangely handsome man any hospitality. To them, the Vitayu were ancient story-book villains, pure myth, or in the very least extinct by now. The hunter knew better. He had stumbled into Ker-T’kal several months before, bled nearly dry, pale as the good book explained the horseman would be, and was greeted with scowls and curses. And stones.

The stones had been the worst. The elders had gone nearly as far as to encourage the younglings to throw them, and at best simply walked on as if it weren’t happening.

Then she had come, one sleeping time, and led the scarred man to her home near the edge of town. He had thought she was his messenger, finally come from the Good Man and Son to call him off of this world and into whatever lay beyond the sky. He had greeted her with tears of joy and tears of fear, but mostly with a calm resignation. He’d had a good run. At 34 pain-strewn years of living, he was by far the oldest hunter alive. As soon as he was able to walk straight and string words together to make most of a sentence they had trained him. He knew of nothing else beyond the hunt. But her words and her medicines cleared his mind enough to realize he had failed in the one thing he had been born to do. Her pills and her fumes opened his imagination. The smokes she blew into his lungs revitalized his heart while placing him into a several month fugue. He remembered her words, her touch. She was old, nearly 50, an ancient. She was wrinkled, her hair a shock white, and her tooth glimmered proudly in her mouth when she grinned, when she talked. She couldn’t walk straight, and her back bent almost completely over, her 5’3” frame hunched over to an elderly 4’7”. Her accent so thick and strange he could hardly understand what she told him.

The strange happiness and comfort he felt with the old woman ended when, after what seemed to be a long sleep, he awoke on the shattered pavement of a walk, laying half on the path and half in the gutter to its side. He stank of sewage and had apparently pissed himself. He couldn’t remember why he was there or why his face felt like an overstuffed doll. He rolled all the way onto the path and opened his eyes to the sunlight. The sun, as usual, was about four-degrees off of true north. It was always disquieting to wake up to the sun’s baleful watch when he had spent so much of his life in the night of the Sh’dee Ring. Daytime to him was like night to most people, something you were told about, something you studied, but no matter how much you contemplate it and ready yourself for it, it always caught you off guard. It was like waking up in a storybook everyday of your life.

As he sat up he realized something was horribly wrong with him. His face seemed to swell with pressure. He leaned against the faded brick of the building behind him, blood and scabs spilling from his head, dripping all around him, splattering on the wall at his back, running down his neck and chest (which he now noticed was bare). Whatever had happened had obviously not been incredibly cheery or well meant, had without a doubt been rather malicious in plan and carried out with a gleeful spirit indeed. The hunter lay back down quickly, trying to prevent his head from bursting from the terribly force he felt just behind his skin.

He slept.

He dreamt.


--2--
He was home. He was in Sh’dee. He was in Ker-T’kal (“Home of the Tunnel!”). Wherever he was, Tilkandor was always watching him. His vats sloshing with a sickening sound, the sound of blood held in a too-small container. His eyeless face always focusing on the hunter. The woman tried to protect him, but Tilkandor snatched her up, disappearing into Sh’dee, into the nighttime. The monstrous lord of Those-Who-Are always returned alone, the woman apparently deserted in the horror laden kingdom of Those-Who-Were. Or maybe she was being drained, being made ready to feed to Those-Who-Will-Be. He never knew in his dreams, but he watched her disappear time after time, she was always crying for the hunter to help her. She didn’t deserve this and she made sure he knew that.

“Iht iz all yoor folt!” she would say as Tilkandor (monstrous Tilkandor, Lord King on High and Ruler of Those-Who-Are, leader of the impious legions of the Clickherds, adviser to all Vitayu in Sh’dee) tore her shoulders to ribbons with his horrible machines and lifted her to the skies. “I wood noht be dehd if yoo had noht com’ to me!”

He awoke alone, crying, and still in great pain, but at least rested. He began to steel himself for his trek.

Gozer

I liked it. There's some good mystery, and it's a good start.

I am teh walrus!

Thank you very much, any suggestions though? I'll keep it updated as I write more and change it.

Thanks for reading so far.

DawnMorningStar

Hi...

This is a nice beginning. Here are a few suggestions:

The use of the word "town" twice in such close succession is a little jarring. Maybe change one to "village"?

change "in" to "at"

This reads just a bit awkwardly to me. Maybe change it to something like:
He had begun his training as soon as he was able to walk on his own and string simple words together.

I would reword this to something like:
while placing him into a fugue that lasted several months.

Just a suggestion:
She was wrinkled, her hair a shock of white. Her single tooth glimmered proudly when she grinned or spoke. She couldn't walk upright, her back was so disfigured. She hunched over so drastically that her normal height of 5'3" had been reduced to 4'7". Her accent was so thick and strange he could hardly understand what she told him.

Again, you have "sunlight", followed by two instances of "sun". Maybe consider changing the second "sun" to either something like "the bright orb's" or "its".

I would reword this something like:
Whatever had happened had obviously not been incredibly cheery or well meant, but rather malicious in plan and carried out with a spiteful spirit. The hunter lay back down trying to prevent his head from bursting from the terrible force he felt pulsing just beneath his skin.

One other thing is your use of adverbs. I used to use them WAY too much, particularly the "ly" words, but I am going to offer you the same advice that was given to me--take out as many of them as you can, and maybe replace them with words that get across the same meaning. Apparently, publishers aren't fond of them. Of course, if you don't plan to try to get this published, then it's sort of a moot point.

These are all just my suggestions and opinions, of course, so do what you'd like with them (including tossing them into the trash) I do think you have a very intriguing beginning and I commend you for your ability to think of names of places and beings and people. Fantasy settings are so difficult that way. You have me interested to read more. Please post again soon.

I am teh walrus!

I think it's starting to fall apart >.< I've got some bad ass writers block at the moment, so I don't have much more to add, but here's what I have. It includes some corrections and changes, as well as the rest of section 2 and the starting of section 3.


Chapter One


--1--
The wind blew through Ker-T’kal, the smell of night pungent on its feathery edge (“Ker-T’Kal—Home of the Tunnel!” proclaimed a sign on the way into the town). It whispered through the sleeping village, its secret words heard by no one but a few stray dogs and the homeless man who had claimed one particularly shady street corner as his own. The locals had taken to calling this man Leather Hide, his skin being scarred from what people assumed to be stabbings and bar brawls gone sour. He was actually a hunter, but one in a particularly bad patch of luck.

Sadly, the people in this Ker had not offered the scarred but strangely handsome man any hospitality. To them, the Vitayu were ancient story-book villains, pure myth, or at the very least extinct by now. The hunter knew better. He had stumbled into Ker-T’kal several months before, bled nearly dry, pale as the good book explained the horseman would be, and was greeted with scowls and curses. And stones.

The stones had been the worst. The elders had gone nearly as far as to encourage the younglings to throw them, and at best simply walked on as if it weren’t happening.

Then she had come, one sleeping time, and led the scarred man to her home near the edge of town. He had thought she was his Messenger, finally come from the Good Man and Son to call him off of this world and into whatever lay beyond the sky. He had greeted her with tears of joy and tears of fear, but mostly with a calm resignation. He’d had a good run. At 34 pain-strewn years of living, he was by far the oldest hunter alive. He knew of nothing else beyond the hunt; his training had started as soon as he could stand on his own feet. But her words and her medicines cleared his mind enough to realize he had failed in the one thing he had been born to do. Her pills and her fumes opened his imagination. The smokes she put through his lungs revitalized him, making him rested, but casting him into a fugue that had apparently lasted several months. He remembered her words, her touch. She was old, nearly 50, an ancient. She was wrinkled, her hair was a shock of white. Her tooth glimmered proudly in her mouth when she grinned or talked, like a sole survivor of a particularly stupid stunt. She couldn’t stand straight, her spine had curled with age. It seemed obvious to the hunter that she had lost nearly a foot of her height forever to the years, and while her words were muddled with a thick accent, they radiated with warmth.

The strange happiness and comfort he felt with the old woman ended when, after what seemed to be a long sleep, he awoke on the shattered pavement of a walk, laying half on the path and half in the gutter to its side. He stank of sewage and had apparently pissed himself. He couldn’t remember why he was there or why his face felt like an overstuffed doll. He rolled all the way onto the path and opened his eyes to the sunlight. Iffer, as usual, was about four-degrees off of true north. It was always disquieting to wake up to that hateful orb’s baleful watch when he had spent so much of his life in the night of the Sh’dee Ring. Daytime to him was like night to most people, something you were told about, something you studied, but no matter how much you contemplate it and ready yourself for it, it always caught you off guard. It was like waking up in a storybook everyday of your life.

As he sat up he realized something was horribly wrong with him. His face seemed to swell with pressure. He leaned against the faded brick of the building behind him, blood and spilling from numerous contusions on his head, dripping all around him, splattering on the wall at his back and running down his neck and chest (which he now noticed was bare). Whatever had happened had obviously not been incredibly cheery or well meant; it seemed it had been rather malicious, and carried out with a spiteful spirit. The hunter lay back down quickly, trying to relieve some of the pressure he felt behind his skin.

He slept.

He dreamt.


--2--
He was home. He was in Sh’dee. He was in Ker-T’kal (“Home of the Tunnel!”). Wherever he was, Tilkandor was always watching him. His vats sloshing with a sickening sound, the sound of blood held in a too-small container. His eyeless face always focusing on the hunter. The woman tried to protect him, but Tilkandor snatched her up, disappearing into Sh’dee, into the nighttime. The monstrous lord of Those-Who-Are always returned alone, the woman apparently deserted in the horror laden kingdom of Those-Who-Were. Or maybe she was being drained, being made ready to feed to Those-Who-Will-Be. He never knew in his dreams, but he watched her disappear time after time, she was always crying for the hunter to help her. She didn’t deserve this and she made sure he knew that.

“Iht iz all yoor folt!” she would say as Tilkandor (monstrous Tilkandor, Lord King on High and Ruler of Those-Who-Are, leader of the impious legions of the Clickherds, adviser to all Vitayu in Sh’dee) tore her shoulders to ribbons with his horrible machines and lifted her to the skies. “I wood noht be dehd if yoo had noht com’ to me!”

He knew this was true, but he still hated her for it. He still loved her for it. Tilkandor would alight on whatever bit of masonry was strong enough to hold his form, and stare at the hunter from behind his metal veil.

“I shall make you into an idol of my power,” he said. “And forever will Those-Who-Are be taught that Tilkandor was the greatest Under-The-Gift who ever had been bred. They shall know how my sightless eyes followed your every move, and my lifeless body mangled your soul.”

It was rather cliché, but it still had the affect of frightening the hunter enough to jerk him out of his horrible night visions.

He awoke alone, still on the ancient path, still in pain. He sat up, the pressure in his head was still there but definitely not as sharp as before.
With a grunt that revealed how sore he truly was, the hunter pulled himself up to his feet and stumbled off towards the inn he had seen when he had first come into town. If his clothing and belongings were still in this town, someone there would know who had them. He also wanted to know what had happened to the old lady. He made a promise to himself, as he was still stumbling and trying to find that mythic “center of balance” that most drunks and heavily wounded seem to lose, that if any ill will had come to the woman he would be sure to correct it.


--3--
He had lost his shoes somewhere. This became apparent rather quickly as his feet picked up countless splinters on his way to the inns open door.

“Oh! If your mother was alive I’d stick her,” he called as he sidled into the drinking room. It was old and crude, but it had the affect he had been hoping for. Roughly thirty pairs of eyes turned up from what they had been doing, be it a hand of cards or a rough stein of the swill they called beer, and focused on the filthy, reeking, shoeless man that was now in their midst. The man who had been tinkling away at the piano in the corner lost his beat as the whore who’d been singing along and dancing stopped her performance, a stark look of surprise on her face.

Surprise, and just below it, understanding.

The hunter looked about quietly, taking in everyone’s faces. He seemed to drink them up with his eyes, those clear, pale green eyes. A few men moved for the door, seeming to sense that something was about to happen and not wanting any part of it at all. Many more men began to tense up, a few more experienced in bar fighting already getting ready by grabbing whatever was at hand. Without a threat, this man, who everyone had taken as just some homeless cur, had put everyone off their guard.

“I seem to have misplaced a large portion of my clothing, as well as my satchel,” said the hunter, “and now I need them returned so I can take my leave.”

“Pah,” snorted one of the uglier faces in the back of the room, “my family and I have been using that rag you wore as a shirt to wipe our asses for almost a month. I have no doubt it smells better now than when it belonged to you!” He sneered, looking around for approval from the other patrons.

Laughter erupted from around the bar. The bartender, who had been fingering the rifle below the counter top, joined in as well, sensing that no one was in any real danger. If nothing else, Pug would rough up this man and kick his arse back into the street. “You tell ‘im, Pug!” he called, still chuckling.

“Yes, Pug, tell me. Did you also happen to come across my bag?” The man’s voice was completely conversational, as if he had missed the insult directed at him.

“Are you that bum I see sleeping on the old layrock path out there? I think whatever was in your bag should be divided up between us here to make up for having to see your ugly form every day for the last coupl’a months. Do you agree?”

Pug’s voice was rigid, holding back a flood of anger. Something about the way he held himself called for the hunter’s attention. Something was there but he couldn’t quite grasp it yet.

“I think what’s mine is mine, and should be returned, actually.”

DawnMorningStar

It would be a shame to abandon this story. I hope you don't. You have a really interesting plot going on so far, and I'm intrigued with the characters. I'd like to know more about this guy and the people in the bar.

Keep going, you can do it.

I am teh walrus!

Only the start of section 4. It picks up right where section 3 ended in my last post, so you didn't miss anything... I'm overcoming the block slowly.

--4--
Pug’s laughter died out quite suddenly and his eyes clouded with wonderment. His jaw suddenly felt too heavy to hold shut, much too heavy. After a moment, he realized what had just happened, and with the realization came the pain.

That bastard! That sweaty, nasty smelling bastard! With a movement that was too fast for the semi-drunk Pug to even hope to follow, he had leapt forward with one hand extended slightly in front of him, palm down, with his knuckles bent at the first joint, and proceeded to knock his jaw out of the socket. The hunter’s eyes now glimmered with a dull yellow glow, and an assortment of the scars which crisscrossed his body seemed to shimmer in the light.

“My satchel, sir?” he asked. He had yet to lose the conversational tone. “If you will. I need it. Sorry for all the unpleasantness.” Without a change in his stance, he jerked his now open hand to one side, and the POP of bone-on-bone was heard throughout the bar as Pug’s jaw was snapped roughly back into place. “Well?”

Pug pulled his head back roughly, with enough force to knock himself off balance. He fell to the floor, eyes still cloudy, but quickly clearing up as his anger forced him back into understanding. That bastard had just caused him such incredible pain that he couldn’t even react.

I am teh walrus!

Chapter One

--1--
The wind blew through Ker-T’kal, the smell of night pungent on its feathery edge (“Ker-T’Kal—Home of the Tunnel!” proclaimed a sign on the way into the town). It whispered through the sleeping village, its secret words heard by no one but a few stray dogs and the homeless man who had claimed one particularly shady street corner as his own. The locals had taken to calling this man Leather Hide, his skin being scarred from what people assumed to be stabbings and bar brawls gone sour. He was actually a hunter, but one in a particularly bad patch of luck.

Sadly, the people in this Ker had not offered the scarred but strangely handsome man any hospitality. To them, the Vitayu were ancient story-book villains, pure myth, or at the very least extinct by now. The hunter knew better. He had stumbled into Ker-T’kal several months before, bled nearly dry, pale as the good book explained the horseman would be, and was greeted with scowls and curses. And stones.

The stones had been the worst. The elders had gone nearly as far as to encourage the younglings to throw them, and at best simply walked on as if it weren’t happening.

Then she had come, one sleeping time, and led the scarred man to her home near the edge of town. He had thought she was his Messenger, finally come from the Good Man and Son to call him off of this world and into whatever lay beyond the sky. He had greeted her with tears of joy and tears of fear, but mostly with a calm resignation. He’d had a good run. At 34 pain-strewn years of living, he was by far the oldest hunter alive. He knew of nothing else beyond the hunt; his training had started as soon as he could stand on his own feet. But her words and her medicines cleared his mind enough to realize he had failed in the one thing he had been born to do. Her pills and her fumes opened his imagination. The smokes she put through his lungs revitalized him, making him rested, but casting him into a fugue that had apparently lasted several months. He remembered her words, her touch. She was old, nearly 50, an ancient. She was wrinkled, her hair was a shock of white. Her tooth glimmered proudly in her mouth when she grinned or talked, like a sole survivor of a particularly stupid stunt. She couldn’t stand straight, her spine had curled with age. It seemed obvious to the hunter that she had lost nearly a foot of her height forever to the years, and while her words were muddled with a thick accent, they radiated with warmth.

The strange happiness and comfort he felt with the old woman ended when, after what seemed to be a long sleep, he awoke on the shattered pavement of a walk, laying half on the path and half in the gutter to its side. He stank of sewage and had apparently pissed himself. He couldn’t remember why he was there or why his face felt like an overstuffed doll. He rolled all the way onto the path and opened his eyes to the sunlight. Iffer, as usual, was about four-degrees off of true north. It was always disquieting to wake up to that hateful orb’s baleful watch when he had spent so much of his life in the night of the Sh’dee Ring. Daytime to him was like night to most people, something you were told about, something you studied, but no matter how much you contemplate it and ready yourself for it, it always caught you off guard. It was like waking up in a storybook everyday of your life.

As he sat up he realized something was horribly wrong with him. His face seemed to swell with pressure. He leaned against the faded brick of the building behind him, blood and spilling from numerous contusions on his head, dripping all around him, splattering on the wall at his back and running down his neck and chest (which he now noticed was bare). Whatever had happened had obviously not been incredibly cheery or well meant; it seemed it had been rather malicious, and carried out with a spiteful spirit. The hunter lay back down quickly, trying to relieve some of the pressure he felt behind his skin.

He slept.

He dreamt.

--2--
He was home. He was in Sh’dee. He was in Ker-T’kal (“Home of the Tunnel!”). Wherever he was, Tilkandor was always watching him. His vats sloshing with a sickening sound, the sound of blood held in a too-small container. His eyeless face always focusing on the hunter. The woman tried to protect him, but Tilkandor snatched her up, disappearing into Sh’dee, into the nighttime. The monstrous lord of Those-Who-Are always returned alone, the woman apparently deserted in the horror laden kingdom of Those-Who-Were. Or maybe she was being drained, being made ready to feed to Those-Who-Will-Be. He never knew in his dreams, but he watched her disappear time after time, she was always crying for the hunter to help her. She didn’t deserve this and she made sure he knew that.

“Iht iz all yoor folt!” she would say as Tilkandor (monstrous Tilkandor, Lord King on High and Ruler of Those-Who-Are, leader of the impious legions of the Clickherds, adviser to all Vitayu in Sh’dee) tore her shoulders to ribbons with his horrible machines and lifted her to the skies. “I wood noht be dehd if yoo had noht com’ to me!”

He knew this was true, but he still hated her for it. He still loved her for it. Tilkandor would alight on whatever bit of masonry was strong enough to hold his form, and stare at the hunter from behind his metal veil.
“I shall make you into an idol of my power,” he said. “And forever will Those-Who-Are be taught that Tilkandor was the greatest Under-The-Gift who ever had been bred. They shall know how my sightless eyes followed your every move, and my lifeless body mangled your soul.”

It was rather cliché, but it still had the affect of frightening the hunter enough to jerk him out of his horrible night visions.

He awoke alone, still on the ancient path, still in pain. He sat up, the pressure in his head was still there but definitely not as sharp as before.
With a grunt that revealed how sore he truly was, the hunter pulled himself up to his feet and stumbled off towards the inn he had seen when he had first come into town. If his clothing and belongings were still in this town, someone there would know who had them. He also wanted to know what had happened to the old lady. He made a promise to himself, as he was still stumbling and trying to find that mythic “center of balance” that most drunks and heavily wounded seem to lose, that if any ill will had come to the woman he would be sure to correct it.

--3--
He had lost his shoes somewhere. This became apparent rather quickly as his feet picked up countless splinters on his way to the inns open door.

“Oh! If your mother was alive I’d stick her,” he called as he sidled into the drinking room. It was old and crude, but it had the affect he had been hoping for. Roughly thirty pairs of eyes turned up from what they had been doing, be it a hand of cards or a rough stein of the swill they called beer, and focused on the filthy, reeking, shoeless man that was now in their midst. The man who had been tinkling away at the piano in the corner lost his beat as the whore who’d been singing along and dancing stopped her performance, a stark look of surprise on her face.

Surprise, and just below it, understanding.

The hunter looked about quietly, taking in everyone’s faces. He seemed to drink them up with his eyes, those clear, pale green eyes. A few men moved for the door, seeming to sense that something was about to happen and not wanting any part of it at all. Many more men began to tense up, a few more experienced in bar fighting already getting ready by grabbing whatever was at hand. Without a threat, this man, who everyone had taken as just some homeless cur, had put everyone off their guard.
“I seem to have misplaced a large portion of my clothing, as well as my satchel,” said the hunter, “and now I need them returned so I can take my leave.”

“Pah,” snorted one of the uglier faces in the back of the room, “my family and I have been using that rag you wore as a shirt to wipe our asses for almost a month. I have no doubt it smells better now than when it belonged to you!” He sneered, looking around for approval from the other patrons.

Laughter erupted from around the bar. The bartender, who had been fingering the rifle below the counter top, joined in as well, sensing that no one was in any real danger. If nothing else, Pug would rough up this man and kick his arse back into the street. “You tell ‘im, Pug!” he called, still chuckling.

“Yes, Pug, tell me. Did you also happen to come across my bag?” The man’s voice was completely conversational, as if he had missed the insult directed at him.

“Are you that bum I see sleeping on the old layrock path out there? I think whatever was in your bag should be divided up between us here to make up for having to see your ugly form every day for the last coupl’a months. Do you agree?”

Pug’s voice was rigid, holding back a flood of anger. Something about the way he held himself called for the hunter’s attention. Something was there but he couldn’t quite grasp it yet.
“I think what’s mine is mine, and should be returned, actually.”

--4--
Pug’s laughter died out quite suddenly and his eyes clouded with wonderment. His jaw suddenly felt too heavy to hold shut, much too heavy. After a moment, he realized what had just happened, and with the realization came the pain.

That bastard! That sweaty, nasty smelling bastard! With a movement that was too fast for the semi-drunk Pug to even hope to follow, he had leapt forward with one hand extended slightly in front of him, palm down, with his knuckles bent at the first joint, and proceeded to knock his jaw out of the socket. The hunter’s eyes now glimmered with a dull yellow glow, and an assortment of the scars which crisscrossed his body seemed to shimmer in the light.

“My satchel, sir?” he asked. He had yet to lose the conversational tone. “If you will. I need it. Sorry for all the unpleasantness.” Without a change in his stance, he jerked his now open hand to one side, and the POP of bone-on-bone was heard throughout the bar as Pug’s jaw was snapped roughly back into place. “Well?”

Pug pulled his head back roughly, with enough force to knock himself off balance. He fell to the floor, eyes still cloudy, but quickly clearing up as his anger forced him back into understanding.




MORE COMING... I HOPE

Nazareth

Hey- The town is 'feathery'? (Your first sentance?) Either it's a really strange world, or I think the imagery just doesn't fit- I noticed a few other slightly off imagery descriptions as well- Will go over it a bit more later if I get time- You did a nice job with alot of description, but over-acheive in some areas just a bit using words to describe scenes that are a bit odd

Try not to use 'ly' words too much- that paragraph can be written as so:

Pug jerked his head with enough force to knock himself off balance. He dropped to the floor, his eyes cloudy with confusion, but was able to gather his wits with angry determination.

Or something like that

Sorry to point out only negatives- but these are things that are taught in writing that make for more compelling stories- I think you're trying to 'dress up'' your writing with too much description- sometimes succinct clear writing is best